Targeted with the short ball by England, Australian captain Michael Clarke has begun a behind-the-scenes mission to ready himself for the onslaught he expects from Stuart Broad and his teammates this summer.

While NSW took on Queensland on a warm spring day at Allan Border Field on Wednesday, Clarke spent his first training session since arriving in Brisbane ducking, weaving and hooking in a far corner of the complex.

Hidden away in the facility's training nets behind the playing oval, Australia's leading batsman spent nearly an hour facing balls thrown at him from an elevated platform by national coach Darren Lehmann and Cricket Australia's spin mentor John Davison.

England made little secret of the fact it thought it could take on Clarke with short-pitched deliveries in the first leg of the back-to-back Ashes series, and the 32-year-old fell victim to fast bowler Broad five times during the campaign.

In a fierce sequence of bouncers at Lord's in July, Broad struck Clarke on the shoulder and the helmet.

And with another tall England fast bowler to join its attack at the Gabba – either Boyd Rankin, Chris Tremlett or Steven Finn – Clarke is eager to simulate the blitz he anticipates will be directed his way from next week.

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"Just throw a couple where you bounce the s--- out of me and then go at the stumps," Clarke instructed Davison towards the end of his solo training session.

He added, with tongue in cheek: "Don't break anything because I want to play next week."

In Clarke's defence he received two of the balls of the series in England, an all-but-unplayable delivery from James Anderson at Trent Bridge and then another beauty from Broad at Durham that angled in, changed direction and clipped the top of his off stump.

And it is not as if he had a poor Ashes, averaging 47 and scoring a brilliant hundred at Old Trafford.

But it is that avenue of attack, particularly when Broad was able to drop the ball on a good length and send it careering towards the top of off, that seemed to worry Clarke the most.

The visitors are unlikely to change their approach in trying to get under his skin and bring down Australia's most proven run-scorer.

"We would try to test most batsmen out with the short ball," England's bowling coach David Saker said when the team arrived in Perth. "Tactically, there's always players that have weaknesses more so than others. They try to exploit our batters in different ways, we try to exploit theirs.

"The short ball is a big weapon in cricket. If you get the ball around head height it has to go in the air if someone wants to play at it. It's a great weapon – if they duck under it, it's a different game.

"If they try to hook it, the bowler always seems to be quite happy about that. It's a really good weapon for all our bowlers."